7 Years

by Jean-Pascal Hattu

Maïté is married to Vincent who has just been sentenced to seven years in prison. The only intimacy left to them lies in the prison's visiting rooms. Twice a week, she picks up his laundry, washes it, irons it, and brings it back to him, performing this ritual assiduously and meticulously.
One day a young man approaches her outside the prison. His name is Jean. He loiters around her and offers her a ride. She hesitates at first, but agrees to his proposition.
He becomes her lover. Their moments of pleasure are set in specific places (a field, a car) but remain stolen moments. He will not cross the threshold of her home.
Eventually Maïté learns that Jean is actually a warden in the prison, who has, moreover, offered her husband his protection. Caught between desire and guilt, pleasure and duty, she finds herself trapped in a three-player game, the rules of which none of them really knows.